Group items tagged

Chicago area nuclear critics say recurring tritium leaks like the one at the Dresden Nuclear facility near Morris last month muddy the picture of nuclear plants as a clean energy source. "Is a June 2009 tritium leak at the Dresden NPP 150 times higher than the EPA water standard henceforth to be considered "clean"?" David Kraft, with the Nuclear Energy Information Service asks in a detailed critique the "Sense of Congress Regarding the Strategic Role of Nuclear Energy (and Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing)" approved in June by the Senate Energy Committee. But local critics of nuclear power say it is more non-sense than sense; and it could lay the groundwork to turn Illinois into the "de facto Yucca Mt. of the Great Lakes."

Exelon Corporation and NRG Energy, Inc.; South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2; Notice of Consideration of Approval of Application Regarding Proposed Merger of NRG Energy, Inc. and Exelon Corporation, and Indirect Transfers of NRG South Texas LP's Facility Operating Licenses, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission, NRC) is considering the issuance of an order under Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section 50.80 approving the indirect transfer of control of the Facility Operating Licenses, which are numbered NPF-76 and NPF-80, for the South Texas Project (STP), Units 1 and 2, respectively, to the extent held by NRG South Texas LP (NRG South Texas).

The Obama administration may be melting down a program that would have shipped deadly radioactive wastes from around the world to a reprocessing facility eyed for Chicago's Southwest suburbs. "The program has been terminated," Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke told Chicago Page One Examiner last week about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. That happened in late March, when GNEP was chopped from the new budget, he said. The controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [GNEP] was a pet project of the DOE during the Bush years. It called for transporting radioactive waste from the nation's 104 nuclear reactors and from 25 foreign countries signed on as "GNEP Partners." The DOE for two years was mulling a contract with Argonne National Labs that had tentative plans to site a nuclear reprocessing plant near Morris. Highly radioactive weapons-useable plutonium from nuclear reactors across the nation and around the world would have been shipped by truck, rail, and barge for research, development, reprocessing, and long-term storage.

Exelon, the nation's largest nuclear power company, stands to rake in roughly an extra $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year if the House climate change bill passes, according to the company's own estimates. The House is expected to vote on the bill on Friday. A memo produced for Exelon by Bernstein Research, and obtained by the Huffington Post, reports that Exelon CEO John Rowe recently told a gathering of investors and senior executives that the energy bill "will add $700 to $750 million to Exelon's annual revenues for every $10 per metric ton (MT) increase in the price of CO2 allowances." Prices will range between $15 and $18 per metric ton, the report estimates, "implying a positive earnings impact of $1 to $1.30 per share." Read the full memo.

Exelon, which earlier on Thursday raised its offer to buy NRG Energy, said it would look to sell the 2,410 MW of capacity NRG owns in Louisiana along with the merchant generator's foreign holdings after the deal closes. The Chicago-based company sweetened its offer for merchant generator NRG Energy by 12.4%, saying it would provide NRG shareholders with 0.545 shares in Exelon for every NRG share they hold. Exelon in October offered 0.485 shares of Exelon for each NRG share, a proposal NRG's board and management rejected as too low. On Thursday, Exelon said its new offer, which represents its "best and final" proposal, would increase the value of the deal by more than $3 billion. Should it complete the deal, Exelon said it would look to sell the NRG assets in a move designed to protect its investment-grade credit rating.

A tritium leak was found during routine monitoring of Exelon Corp.'s nuclear power plant, but contaminated water was contained to the property and did not pose a public health threat, company officials said Monday. Testing at the Dresden plant, near the town of Morris about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, found tritium levels of 3.2 million picocuries per liter of water in a monitoring well, storm drains and concrete vault. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's limit for drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter.

Bankruptcy of Tronox Inc. throws West Branch project into limbo A $500 million effort to remove radioactive material along a waterway in western DuPage County will likely be delayed after the company responsible for the cleanup filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, local and federal officials said. On Jan. 12, Tronox Inc. asked a New York bankruptcy court for protection from creditors while it reorganizes financially. The bankruptcy filing means it is unlikely that funding will be available to complete a segment of the cleanup in Warrenville this summer as planned, said Tim Fischer, a remedial project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "We are really just in a holding pattern until the court figures out which creditors get paid in what order," Fischer said.

Eleven years after its last nuclear reactor was shut down, the University may be making strides to reinstate a new one on campus. The Illinois Student Senate approved a resolution April 8 to create a new integral fast reactor for use by the nuclear engineering department. "The integral fast reactor is a research reactor," said David Wall, freshman in LAS. "It takes spent fuel from your normal reactor and uses it as more energy." Spent fuel, or fuel that has already been used, is a problem in energy consumption and conservation, said Wall, who served in the U.S. Navy as an electrical and nuclear operator. The new reactor would enable engineers to use this energy instead of leaving it in the form of waste. Wall said this is the equivalent of taking a tissue box full of used or spent fuel and creating a shot glass-sized amount of waste out of it.

"The La Salle County property tax review board ruled the equalized assessment value for Exelon Nuclear's generating plant south of Seneca is $525 million. J. Bradley Fewell, legal counsel for Exelon Nuclear, issued a written statement Friday saying the assessed value "will increase the station's property taxes to approximately $21 million per year, a 75 percent increase from what the station paid in 2009." "We will evaluate all options available to us, including an appeal to the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board," Fewell said."

Quebec will create a special committee to study the potential effects of uranium exploration and mining on public health, says the province's chief public health officer Dr. Alain Poirier. Poirier made the announcement Friday, following a meeting with a group of 23 doctors in the province's North Shore region. The doctors at the Sept-Îles Hospital have threatened to resign unless the province puts in place a ban on uranium mining and exploration, which they said is a threat to public health. "We agreed to look at all the options and not just only to think if one day there will be a mine - but what are the effects now on the population," Poirier said.

Quebec will create a special committee to study the potential effects of uranium exploration and mining on public health, says the province's chief public health officer Dr. Alain Poirier. Poirier made the announcement Friday, following a meeting with a group of 23 doctors in the province's North Shore region. The doctors at the Sept-Îles Hospital have threatened to resign unless the province puts in place a ban on uranium mining and exploration, which they said is a threat to public health. "We agreed to look at all the options and not just only to think if one day there will be a mine - but what are the effects now on the population," Poirier said.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is eying Braidwood Gen-erating Station in the wake of a valve failure last summer in Unit 2. The June 24 failure involves a valve located outside the containment area. It controls the sump pump that drains water from the reactor, should it be necessary. The valve in question, and others on the two units, are located on the nuclear side of the station. NRC spokesman Viktoria Mitlyng said today the valve has since been repaired, and there is no longer any kind of safety concern to the station and the public. The NRC is now looking at what happened in the incident and why. "At what kind of weaknesses in the station's programs would have caused such a situation," she said. The NRC's report was issued Nov. 30, and received at Braidwood Station on Wednesday of this week, spokesman Neal Miller said today.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is eying Braidwood Gen-erating Station in the wake of a valve failure last summer in Unit 2. The June 24 failure involves a valve located outside the containment area. It controls the sump pump that drains water from the reactor, should it be necessary. The valve in question, and others on the two units, are located on the nuclear side of the station. NRC spokesman Viktoria Mitlyng said today the valve has since been repaired, and there is no longer any kind of safety concern to the station and the public. The NRC is now looking at what happened in the incident and why. "At what kind of weaknesses in the station's programs would have caused such a situation," she said. The NRC's report was issued Nov. 30, and received at Braidwood Station on Wednesday of this week, spokesman Neal Miller said today.

"Joliet is pushing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to more than double the concentration of cancer-causing radium it's allowed to dump onto farmland in the south suburbs, expanding the potential for deadly radon gas in these increasingly urban communities. Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive element abundant in deep-water wells in northern Illinois and throughout the Midwest. Cities such as Joliet that rely on these deep wells spend millions of dollars each year to remove radium from their drinking water. Some communities pay to dump radium in a landfill, but Joliet and others use a cheaper alternative, mixing it with waste material that is sold to farmers as fertilizer. About 21,000 tons of Joliet's radium-enriched fertilizer has been dumped on area farms since 2005 The city is petitioning the state EPA to allow it to dispose of more than twice the level of radium that's currently allowed. If granted, it would be 10 times higher than what was considered safe just five years ago - rekindling concerns about the long-term exposure of concentrated radium on the soil."

"This week's RFT feature story, "Meltdown in Venice" features Larry Burgan of Granite City, Illinois, and his fight to prove that his former employer is responsible for radiation poisoning that he believes damaged his health and the health of those who live nearby the factory. Here's a video interview we did with Burgan near Spectrulite Consortium's plant in Venice, Illinois."

"Exelon will pay more than $1 million to resolve three civil complaints stemming from radioactive tritium leaks at the Braidwood, Bryon and Dresden nuclear power plants. The fine was announced Thursday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and the state's attorneys for Will, Grundy and Ogle counties. Madigan said the fine includes civil penalties totaling $628,000 and $548,000 to fund several supplemental environmental projects in and around the communities where the power plants are located. "It is imperative that Illinois' nuclear power plants are operated in a manner that does not endanger public health or the environment," Madigan said in a news release. "I appreciate the involvement and assistance of State's Attorneys (James) Glasgow, (John) Roe and (Sheldon) Sobol in reaching these successful settlements." "

"An Associated Press analysis shows that the top executive of the nation's largest nuclear power company received total compensation of $12 million in 2009, a 1 percent drop from 2008. But about 70 percent of the package for John Rowe, chairman and CEO of Exelon, came in the form of stock options that currently have little value unless the company's stock price increases. Like other power companies, Exelon has been hurt by declining electricity consumption caused by the Great Recession."

"Construction of nuclear power plants in Illinois could be permitted for the first time in more than 20 years under legislation that passed the state Senate today. Lawmakers closed the door to new nuclear construction in 1987, requiring federal standards for disposal of nuclear waste to be put in place before more plants could be added in the state. But modern lawmakers have tried to remove that requirement for several years with previously limited success. State Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-Moline, sponsored this year's Senate bill (HB3388). It sailed through the Senate Energy committee, which Jacobs chairs, and the full chamber. "

"I would like to clarify the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's position regarding tritium leaks at nuclear power plants in response to the article entitled "NRC: Tritium Response is to Emotion, not Risk" that ran on March 2 in the Morris Daily Herald. While it is true that in the grand scheme of radiation, tritium is not a significant safety concern, in the area of public perception, it takes on greater significance. The NRC recognizes and acknowledges public concerns about tritium leaks and treats them very seriously."

"An otherwise garden-variety workplace dispute has posed a larger question at the Byron nuclear generation station, 80 miles west of Chicago: How adequately are security guards trained and equipped to protect nuclear power plants? The question is raised by a complaint brought before a federal administrative judge by Matt Simon, a former guard and weapons trainer at Byron who is asking the court to decide between two explanations for why he no longer works at the facility. Was he an incompetent employee who falsified weapons logs, as claimed by Exelon Corp., which operates Byron? Or was he fired a year ago for trying to alert his superiors to security lapses at the plant, as he asserts? In what his attorneys characterize as a whistle-blower suit, Simon alleges there was a consistent policy of dumbing down security training and certifying unqualified guards. He says rifles and other equipment failed. He says plant officials filed false security reports with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that his firing resulted directly from his speaking out."

"Nearly two-dozen doctors in Sept-Îles, Que., are renewing their threats to resign and leave the province after the government rejected calls for a moratorium on uranium mining and exploration in the region. The province decided against a moratorium before hearing from a provincial panel researching the health effects of uranium mining, said psychiatrist Dr. Isabelle Gingras, one of the north shore doctors who is threatening to resign. In December, Dr. Alain Poirier, the chief public health officer in Quebec, announced the creation of a special committee to study the potential effects of uranium exploration and mining on the health of the population."

"A report linking water contamination at Camp Lejeune to cancer in former base residents went to the desk of President Barack Obama this week. The President's Cancer Panel released a 240-page analysis Thursday urging the president to tighten regulations on environmental carcinogens and chemicals known to increase cancer risk. "In 2009 alone, approximately 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease," an introductory letter addressed to Obama reads. "With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action." The report, the focus of the panel's work for the 2008-2009 year, contains a section dedicated to exposure to contaminants and other hazards from military sources. Included are brief descriptions of the Vietnam-era carcinogen Agent Orange, chromium, radioactive contamination, and historical water contamination with the solvents TCE and PCE at Camp Lejeune. "